


Sickness and Comfort

by rockon1973



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4048963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockon1973/pseuds/rockon1973
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul is sick and Brian (and maybe George, eventually) comes to keep him company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sickness

**Author's Note:**

> I think there are not enough stories where Brian is nice, so I thought I should write one. Sorry the chapters are so short! I was planning to write this as a one shot, but decided to split it up since I wanted to post what I have so far. Thanks for reading! All comments are appreciated. Please let me know if you think this story is good or bad!

Upon waking, the first thing Paul noticed was that he was lying somewhere hard and cold. He tried to sit up but fell back as a wave of nausea washed over him. Then, he began to remember what had happened before he fell asleep. he had been tired all day and started feeling sick sometime during the evening. He groaned, recalling how many times he had thrown up and realized that he was probably going to have to do that again within a few minutes.

After leaning over the toilet while his body tried to turn itself inside out, Paul stood shakily and made his way downstairs to his telephone, having decided to call someone. He could manage all right with another type of sickness as long as he was fully conscious and strong enough to move about the house, but, something about vomiting made him not want to be alone. He barely even cared who he was with as long as they would sit with him until he fell asleep or began to feel better.

He glanced at the clock on the wall and wondered which of his friends would be willing to come over at three o'clock in the morning just because Paul was feeling sick. John would most likely refuse. George would come gladly but he would probably end up vomiting in sympathy. Paul dialed Ringo's number but there was no answer and wondered if he should call Brian. He knew this was something that definitely exceeded the manager's duties, but he also knew that Brian Epstein genuinely cared about people, particularly his boys The Beatles.

 

Brian awoke suddenly to the sound of a phone ringing beside his head. He was wide awake instantly. Who would be calling at this time of night? Had something terrible happened? Maybe someone he knew had died or been hurt. He grabbed the phone off the bedside table and answered nervously. 

"Hello. Brian Epstein."

"Hey, Eppie . . ." Brian recognized Paul's voice and drew a deep breath.

"Paul! My God, are you okay? What's going on?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Well, I will be. But I'm sick and I don't want to be alone," Paul sighed. "So I was wondering if you could come."

"Yeah, I'll be there," Brian assured him. "Expect me in half an hour but I'll try to be there in fifteen."

"Thanks," Paul mumbled and hung up. He wasn't sure what he should do until Brian arrived. Wanting comfort, he thought about calling his father to talk Brian was there but decided that sitting up for that long would be too much work. He wished his phone was in a more convenient location. Eventually, he took a bowl from the kitchen he could use if he felt the sudden urge to puke and lay down on the couch. Before much time had passed, he was dry heaving into the bowl. He was so tired of this. He was nauseous and exhausted and had a headache and probably a fever. He decided there was no way he was going to go to the studio tomorrow, even if he did feel better, because his stomach muscles would be too way tired to sing. When Paul felt like he was about to drown in pain and misery, he heard a key in the door. Brian had finally come.


	2. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian arrives.

Brian found Paul lying on the couch looking rather sick and unhappy. He knelt beside his younger friend and put a hand oh his forehead. “How’re you doing?”

“Been better, but glad you’re here. Didn’t want to be alone.”

Brian smiled, glad that he was wanted. Throughout his earlier years, it had seemed like people rarely appreciated him. Even now, he felt that way quite a lot and was grateful for the trust Paul put in him. The manager was distracted from these thoughts when Paul began to dry heave into the bowl again. Brian put an arm around him, offering comfort as well as holding him upright. When Paul finished, he leaned back against Brian, feeling exhausted and weak. Having someone there to at least try to distract him was a good feeling. Even better, Paul felt a gentle hand massaging his shoulder in a reassuring way.

Though Brian was trying hard to be there for Paul, he really had no idea what he was doing. Not only was he unsure what Paul wanted, but he had very little experience taking care of others. He decided he should do what seemed like an obvious and easy first step: find out if his patient was running a fever. Carefully lifting Paul off him and laying him back down (feeling incredibly guilty when Paul whimpered quietly and attempted to keep him from leaving), Brian hurried to the bathroom and searched the medicine cabinet. Finding a thermometer and some aspirin, he took a glass of water from the kitchen before returning to the living room. 

“Can you let me check your temperature?” he asked kindly.

“I’ll try not to vomit on you.”

Luckily, for Brian, who, for a reason unknown to Paul, was wearing an expensive suit even now, no such thing happened. As it turned out, Paul had a low fever of slightly less than 100 degrees. Brian gave him the water and the aspirin, wondering if Paul had even tried to keep himself hydrated.

“No,” Paul admitted looking ashamed. “For some reason, I never do when I’m sick like this. I just sit in the bathroom until I fall asleep or someone comes.”

This surprised Brian. He would have expected this kind of behavior from John, but it was strange that Paul would not even try to take care of himself. Though, in some ways, the manager felt relieved by this. He occasionally found it hard to believe that Paul was even human. When the rest of the band was angry and tired, Paul would smile politely and believably. No matter the situation, he always knew how to act or what to say. To the outside eye, he apparently struggled little with the mental and physical hardships of touring and was always happy. This would make Brian jealous or angry and sometimes scared. But then, he would hear Paul forget what he was about to say or he would see him sleeping the sleep of the exhausted on George’s (or John’s or Ringo’s) shoulder and then Brian would remember that Paul was really no different from the rest of them. 

“Hey, Macca, do you want to go upstairs?” Brian asked, saying the only thing he could think of. Paul just shrugged so Brian decided they might as well. 

“I’m not going to be able to sleep. Not yet,” Paul announced once they had made it to his bedroom. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, for he was very tired, but he just had a feeling. “I want to listen to music. Will you go get a record, please? Don’t care which one.”

A few minutes later, Brian was gazing at the expansive record collection. Though he was unsure what Paul might want, some instinct told him that he should pick something that would bring Paul memories that would help distract from his current unpleasant situation. When Brian’s eye fell on Buddy Holly’s album of the same name, he knew that it was right. Paul must have owned this album since he was a teenager. He probably listened to it with John and George. And Buddy Holly’s voice was fairly soft and calm. Listening to Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis in a dark house at this time of night would feel wrong.

Brian returned to the bedroom, put the record in the player, and sat down on the side of the bed. He and Paul listened without speaking a word, simply letting the music wash over them. About half way through the album, Paul noticed that he no longer felt sick. “You can go now, Eppie,” he whispered.

Brian shook his head. “I’ll go to your guest room, but I’m not really leaving yet.” Secretly, Paul was thankful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the last chapter, but if you would like a third, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading! Again, all comments are appreciated.


End file.
